A senior Chinese climate change adviser claims China intends to limit its total carbon emissions by the end of the decade.

The world's largest belcher of greenhouse gas could control carbon dioxide emissions either by using an absolute cap or by limiting the intensity of its pollution, claimed He Jiankun, chairman of China's Advisory Committee on Climate Change.

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He said the Chinese government could set out this goal in its next five-year plan. He, however, pointed out that this opinion was his personal view only meant for academic studies.

"What I said does not represent the Chinese government or any organization," he said.

Environmentalists welcomed He's comments but wanted to know how far the proposed cap will go. They also said the cap needed to be enforceable for it to be effective.

They noted that China's emissions have jumped dramatically in the last two decades. China been the world's largest polluter since 2006, overtaking the USA. the average Chinese person's carbon footprint is now at par with the average European's but is lower than the average American's.

Not lost on environmentalists was the timing of He's comments, which came only a day after Washington announced a plan to cut carbon emissions from US power plants 30 percent by 2030.

"The timing is very auspicious," said Frank Jotzo, an expert on the economics and policy of climate change at Australian National University and a lead author on the fifth assessment report from the IPCC, the UN's climate science panel.

He cautioned, however, that the announcement of intent coming from He of an absolute target doesn't tell environmental experts anything substantive.

China set its first ever carbon targets in 2009. China was to have cut its emissions relative to its economic growth by 40 percent to 45 percent by 2020, compared to 2005 levels. This, China has clearly not achieved.

In a report issued last March, China's Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) concluded that China's air pollution situation is "extremely severe."

The report discovered that only three of 74 cities were able to meet China's new air quality standards in 2013.

MEP said pollution was most severe in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area. It noted that the 13 cities in this region accounted for 11 of China's 20 most polluted cities, and seven of the top ten.

MEP also said the average amount of PM2.5 pollution in cities in this region was 106 micrograms per cubic meter or over 10 times the World Health Organization's recommended standard of 10 micrograms per cubic meter for an annual average.

TagsCarbon emissions, Greenhouse Gas